


time can heal, but this won't

by happynotdignified



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Betrayal, Canonical Character Death, Established Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, F/M, Godric's Hollow, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Remus Lupin, M/M, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Remus doesn't know Sirius is innocent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26322469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happynotdignified/pseuds/happynotdignified
Summary: James laughing. James smiling. James joking.Gone.Remus finally registered an unearthly noise and realised it was coming from himself. He had never known pain like this before. Not once. Even his transformations"No, please no!"Or // Remus Lupin woke up on 1st November 1981 expecting to spend the day with his best friends and their baby son, Harry. Instead, he has to come to terms with the fact they are dead, Harry is not there and the man he loves is to blame.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Remus Lupin & James Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 25





	time can heal, but this won't

**Author's Note:**

> I am currently going through my laptop and found a few old pieces I never posted. This one I wrote in 2013 but I fixed it up a little and wanted to share. Title is from 'Before You Go' Lewis Capaldi. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

**Time can heal ... but this won't.**

Remus looked up at the old clock in his small flat and realised he was running late - a consequence of Sirius not turning up for dinner last night which had led to him worrying about the man till the early hours. Quickly eating the last bit of his sandwich, he grabbed his cloak on the way out the door. He was going to spend the day with James, Lily and Harry. Because of the Fidelius charm, they couldn’t leave the house so someone from the Order brought them all the essentials that they needed and today it was his turn. He chuckled to himself as he remembered Sirius regaling how Lily complained that spending 5 Galleons on chocolate frogs did not count as ‘essential’. Harry did love them though; Remus made a mental note to sneak a few past Lily’s watchful eyes.

As Remus started down the path from his apartment, he noticed a group of cloaked people standing on the street corner. He frowned, why were wizards loitering around Muggle London in such plain sight? The four seemed excited about something but Remus shrugged it off and took a sharp right into the alley which he used to Apparate out of the way of Muggles.

After the familiar swooping sensation of apparating, he landed in Godric’s Hollow and set off to the small corner shop and took out the list and muggle money Lily had given him. That was another reason Sirius wasn’t given this job – he claimed the difficult currency was why he bought too many snacks. Remus couldn't help but grin with fondness when he saw Sirius struggling with the paper muggle money. 

Remus chuckled to himself when he saw James had added ‘Liquorice Cauldrons’ to the list in his loopy scrawl and made another mental note to visit Honeydukes soon. Once he’d paid, Remus continued through the village to the cottage where his best friends lived. The streets were fairly busy with muggles – on their way to work, chasing their children in the park, chatting with neighbours over the hedges. Remus sighed to himself; it had been months since his friends had had to go into hiding and James hated being ‘trapped’ as he put it, Remus knew that Lily and Harry were the only things that kept James sane.

The cottage was at the end of a long row and Remus knew the walk to it so well he could do it with his eyes closed – he didn’t of course, as you could never tell who was lurking in the shadows. Before the prophecy, the Potters had loved their new home in the village. Even enjoying the outdoors was something else Voldemort had stolen from them.

As he approached the cottage and took a good look at it, he froze dead in his tracks.

No.

This was all wrong.

The right hand side of the house looked as if it had been blown apart, the front door was hanging off by its hinges and the gate was swinging sinisterly in the light wind.

“No,” breathed Remus.

He dropped the bag of groceries and ran forward stopping short at the threshold of the house, not wanting to know what he would find inside. With a trembling hand he pulled out his wand before moving the door back and entering the hall, which was lit only by the sunlight coming through the living room window. The light fell right at the foot of the stairs. Right where James Potter lay, unmoving.

Remus felt his knees give out beneath him as he fell beside what was left of his best friend. His glasses were crooked, his eyes wide open. His wand hand was empty. Remus absently wondered had he been disarmed or had he been wandless to begin with.

“Prongs?” he whispered.

James’s brown eyes stared back at him blankly and a wave of memories hit Remus like a tonne of bricks. Meeting on the train. Laughter. The fear of them finding out he was a werewolf. The astonishment and affection when James didn’t mind at all. James suggesting that he, Sirius and Peter become Animagus. Coming up with their nicknames. Sneaking out at night even when it wasn’t a full moon. Staying up in the dead of night creating the Map. Not blinking an eye when he first stumbled upon Remus and Sirius making out behind a tapestry. James jumping on his bed one afternoon with delight that Lily had agreed to a date. James crying with happiness as he introduced Remus to Harry. James laughing. James smiling. James joking.

Gone.

Remus finally registered an unearthly noise and realised it was coming from himself. He had never known pain like this before. Not once. Even his transformations.

“No _, please no_.”

Remus had tears rolling down his face as he let the wrenching sobs wrack his body. He didn’t try to stop them. James was the best friend he’d ever had. He had always been there for Remus; the first to accept that he was a werewolf and the first to suggest they do something to help him. James always put his friends and his family before himself.

Suddenly Remus’s head snapped up. Where were Harry and Lily?

His hand shaking, he reached out and closed James’s eyelids not wanting to remember the vacant look in them. He then scrambled up, they couldn’t all be gone … not Lily … not innocent little Harry. Remus almost ran into the living room looking around for any sign of them. Then his eyes fell on the two wands lying discarded on the sofa. Wherever Lily was she was wandless, Remus took a deep breath telling himself _she’s alive, Harry’s alive, they’ve got to be, they’ll have escaped._

Back out in the hall Remus looked back at James and noticed how his arms were spread out as if he was trying to protect those behind him. It was a strange position Remus noticed and his eyes went up the stairs, remembering the upstairs of the house had been blown out. Bile rose in Remus’s throat as he carefully stepped round James and shakily walked upstairs, wand gripped.

He opened Lily and James’s door first but the room seemed untouched and he stepped out. The door to Harry’s nursery was ajar and as if in a daze Remus pushed it open not fully accepting what he saw.

Lily lay crumpled on the floor, her vibrant red hair splayed out around her head like a fiery halo. A look of anguish on her face, her hand reaching out behind her in what Remus could only assume was a last attempt to protect Harry.

“Oh, Lily,” Remus whispered as tears continued to flow. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I should have been here.”

His eyes flashed to Harry’s cot but it was empty apart from the little blue blanket and Harry’s stuffed snowy owl.

Panicking, Remus looked around what remained of the room – most of it was blown apart. After frantically searching around the room and checking the bathroom and spare room, he realised there was no sign of Harry anywhere. Had Voldemort taken him instead of killing him? Was he even alive? Had Sirius taken him, he was his godfather after all.

 _Sirius_.

“He did this,” Remus gasped, knowing it was the only possibility but not comprehending how it could be. Sirius had been the secret keeper, only he could have told Voldemort the Potters’ whereabouts. A horrible mixture of confusion, fury and heartbreak boiled inside of Remus. _Sirius had done this_. The were not words for the level of this betrayal. Remus found he could not breathe, was this why Sirius had never showed up last night? James thought of Sirius as a brother, he had trusted him with the life of his wife and son. Had it been only days ago that Sirius had sat in this very house with Remus, Peter and the Potters laughing away?

Remus picked up the stuffed snowy owl and threw it out of the hole in the wall, remembering Sirius had given it to Harry. 

_Where was Harry?_

He felt himself collapse by the gaping hole, deep bone-chilling sobs wracking through his entire body.

"How could you do this to them? How could you do this to _me?"_ he screamed with a cracking voice. "You were their friend! You were my -"

Nothing. Sirius wasn't his anything anymore. 

* * *

The morning air was crisp as the black clad group surrounded the double grave in Godric’s Hollow. The sky was overcast and it looked like it would rain. The preacher was speaking but Remus wasn’t listening. He couldn’t, he was numb from the pain.

Dumbledore had visited him to explain what happened. Sirius had indeed betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort. Voldemort had killed them both but when he attempted to kill Harry the curse backfired and he somehow destroyed himself. Then Peter of all people had gone after Sirius to avenge James and Lily’s murders. Remus wished Peter had asked him to go with him – Peter never had been the best dueller, especially against Sirius. The Remus of a week ago could never have imagined harming Sirius but the righteous fury and heartbreak he was feeling would have left Sirius as a speck of dust. Remus knew this would not have healed the pain - in fact it would only have made it worse, but the thoughts still plagued him.

Sirius blew a muggle street apart killing Peter and twelve muggles and was now rotting in Azkaban – where he belonged. Harry was now living with Lily’s sister and her family. Dumbledore had asked Remus not to visit Harry for reasons that he did not expand upon. Remus could only hope little Harry would be looked after; he knew Lily and her sister had not been close but he had been hoping to see her at the funeral. The pain of losing his best friends had numbed him but the thought of not even seeing Harry broke what was left of his heart.

The preacher had finished speaking. Remus drew his wand and conjured a bouquet of white lilies which he dropped into the earth on top of the two coffins. It was all he could do but lilies always where the only flower James had ever liked.

As the soil was pushed back into the grave, Remus turned on his heel and walked away. He couldn’t stay there a moment longer. He felt completely destroyed – three of his best friends were dead all because of the fourth - because of the one he thought he would spend the rest of his life beside. Voldemort had fallen but Remus couldn’t have cared less. What did victory matter if you had no one to rejoice with? Sirius had done something far worse than Voldemort – he had betrayed his friends and in Remus’s book there was no greater crime.

On the way out of the kissing gate, he caught sight of a tall dark figure beneath the trees. Instinctively Remus reached for his wand before he recognised the figure as Severus Snape. Remus longed to ask him why he was there but let it go. He knew Snape had been Lily’s best friend for five years and had never really got over the loss of her friendship. Snape’s face was contorted with such a look of pain that Remus thought that maybe, just maybe – but he couldn’t understand why – there was someone as hurt as he was.


End file.
